reMIND

Pages 92 and 93 are online!

These pages were a nightmare. Sure they look simple and basic but let me tell you something. If you are trying to cut corners to make your graphic novel go faster then you’ll end up taking three times as long to finish it because you will keep fixing things that are just pain screwed up. For example, these pages and the next two were taken right from the animated version that I made years ago because I liked the animated scene and I didn’t want to have to rethink it all again. Notice how the frames are all widescreen as if watching a movie. Well, because I just traced over the animated frames I didn’t think much about continuity. What ended up happening was the redrawing and painting of literally every frame in one way or another to make it finally fit and work. For instance, I reversed several frames in the animation and so I accidentally drew Victuals suit reversed. Then I realized that I didn’t draw his cloak on him then the gun was missing. Then the positions of characters and stuff would change from frame to frame. AHHHHH!!

You would think I would’ve looked at the previous pages before attempting to draw these, right? Well, that’s the problem with doing something like this on the side and taking months off between sittings. reMIND has been apart of my life for so long that I tricked myself into thinking that I didn’t need a recap before jumping back into it after a long pause.

Lets just say I’ve learned my lesson. Three lessons to be exact. And they are as follows.

1. Don’t just transfer a scene from animation to fit into your comic. What works nicely in motion does not always transfer over to a page with the same impact.

2. Always look at the previous pages before cleaning up the page your working on especially if it’s a continuing scene. (Especially if you haven’t worked on it in a while)

3. If you try to cut corners on your thumbnails then you will spend double the amount of time finishing the page.

That’s how it is for me anyway. On a positive note, I’m almost finished with the last few pages now. I thought I was going to be finished this week but I keep changing more spreads that had sloppy thumbnails based on animated scenes.

P.S. I’m trying something new. If you are subscribed and reading this in Google’s Feed Reader then please take a second to give me a big thumbs up in Reader. I hear if Google Reader gets a bunch of thumbs up on my blog then it will get featured on a popular list someplace and it will drive lots of new visitor to me. It looks to me that about 350 people subscribe to reMINDblog through Google Reader sooooo, if I could get over 100 thumbs ups then that would be amazing. I can also let you know how well it works.

Here are the next few pages.

Sorry to keep this extremely short today. I took on a little animation gig this weekend and was slammed trying to get it all finished by Sunday night.

I’m still really close to being finished with all the pages for reMIND now. I thought I would be done last week but I kept fixing stupid mistakes. I’m REALLLLLY close though. On a positive note, I bought my ISBN number and barcode. Talk about expensive! I also paid for an artist alley table at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles for July 1-4, 2011. It looks like this will be the first convention that I can officially sell reMIND. Yay! Oh the joy!

I have some new interesting findings I’ll share later this week. See you then!

Here are the next two pages of reMIND.

It blows my mind how fast the weeks fly by! October is already gone! My goal with reMIND was to get all the artwork completely finished by the end of October, and I’m happy to announce… okay, I’m still not finished. But ,I am VERY close. I have 2 more spreads that need a few more little adjustments before I can officially say “I’m finished.”

I’m mainly working on the text now. Once I get all the text updated, I’m going to send a copy to friends and family to see if they can find any more mistakes before I spend the BIG money. The cover and back cover are in the hands of Christopher Kosek, to work his design magic. I’m excited to see what he does to push it to the the next level.

In the amazing news catagory, Sam Kieth sent me his pinup! I wish I could post it right now but then there would be no reason to buy the book!  I’m in the process of coloring it now and it’s surreal for me. I used to study his work for years and now I’m actually coloring it, Amazing! Also, I learned that Sam has a blog. Go there immediately and start following it so that he will post more stuff!  It’s pretty new but this is exactly what I wish all my favorite artists would do. It’s such a unique window into their lives and work. Plus, it helps me know what they are working on so I can order it from Amazon when it comes out, he he. For instance, Sam’s working on a giant art book that looks rad and I would have never know about it without seeing his blog, since I don’t go to comic shops or bookstores very often.

I’ll probably have shorter posts for the months of November and December because of the holidays and getting caught up on everything. My office looks like an earthquake just hit and I know it’s only going to get worst. The funny thing is, when I finally finish reMIND, it’s going to be even more work learning to market and sell. Then I’ll have to figure out how to make Volume 2. haha. I can’t wait!

P.S. Is anyone having trouble making comments now? I was informed that someone couldn’t make one the other week. If you are unable to do so then please send me an email and I’ll go back to my old commenting system.

Well, the cat is officially out of the bag so I might as well talk about it here too. As many of you know Sam Kieth (The Maxx) did a pinup for my book and I colored it.  I absolutely love it! It’s so fun to see all of Sam Kieth’s style jammed into my characters. From adding a little belly to Sonja to giving Victuals really loose rubbery arms. I love it!

In addition to his pinup,  Sam has gone above and beyond anything I ever expected to help with my project.  Everything from being a super nice guy over email conversations to offering to help spread the word about my project on his blog and when the books out.

So here it is. Sam Kieth’s Pinup. Click the thumbnail below to see the full pinup at TopWebComics by voting for reMIND. [EDIT the voting incentive has changed but you can still vote]

Now after I tricked you all into voting,  you can go see it again at Sam’s blog along with the black and white version before I colored it.  Wow, that was deceptive of me, right? This whole time you could’ve just gone to Sam’s blog to see everything but I forced you to go vote for me. What a jerk.

But seriously,  Sam wrote some very nice things about me and reMIND that I’m very proud to share.

Thanks again Sam!!!

New pages! Let the punching begin!

A few months ago a few commenters said they wanted to see Victuals punch something. Well, here you go! Hopefully it was worth the wait. I’m still not sure if I buy the dialogue though. I mean, saying, “I don’t want to fight you” and then going buck wild is a pretty dramatic shift. I figure he’s just defending himself knowing how aggressive the lizard guards are.

Another thing I’m toying with is having sound effects being cut off by the frames. It all started because I didn’t feel like I knew what kind of sounds to put in the action so I just started hiding it. Haha! I think it’s kinda cool like that now. What do you think? Should I leave it for the printed book? If anyone has any suggestions for spelling sound effects then let me know. Until now I never thought much about how to spell sounds and for some reason I can’t seem to be satisfied with anything I come up with.

Last chance to get T-shirts online.

It’s been fun to make t-shirts and hoodies to sell but I have to be honest, I wish I sold a bit more. Based on the poll I took before printing my new batch, about 150 people said they wanted to buy a shirt or hoodie but it turns out that only about 40 people were serious. Sales have pretty much slowed down to a complete stop these last few weeks and so I decided to pull the line from my online store so that I don’t have to keep my office filled with boxes of all the sizes just incase someone places an order. Now I’ll be able to stick all the boxes in my garage until I go to conventions.

So here’s the deal. I’ll leave my store open until the 10th of December (two weeks from now) so anyone who wants to buy a reMIND t-shirt or hoodie can still get one before Christmas. After the 10th, I’ll pull the shirts form the online store and the only way to get one is if you come see me at a convention. To sweeten the deal, I’ll lower the price of the Lizard Man shirt to $10 and the hoodie to $15. The reMIND shirt will be lowered to $13. Obviously anything larger than a 2X will be more but it’s still a big discount from before.

So if you don’t plan on seeing me at a Convention in the future then grab one while you can. I have a bad habit of giving shirts away to friends the longer I hold onto them. Haha. I just want to have people wearing these things so that I can get some publicity for reMIND.

Convention Schedule (so far)

Speaking of conventions, I just got word that I will be exhibiting at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2011. I was on the waiting list for a small press table and it looks like I got in. Utter Joy! I also bought an artist alley spot at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles so that make two confirmed conventions for 2011 already. I also plan on doing Ape Con and a few other local shows once I figure out what would be best. I’ll keep you updated on everything as time goes.

Book Progress

I know many of you are wondering what the progress is for the printed version of reMIND. Things are going pretty smoothly so far. Chris and I are still working on the interior designs of the book and we decided to add another 16 pages to make sure we can fit everything in that we need since we have lots of pin-ups, a foreword, title pages, credits, kickstarter credits, making of content, copyright page, and whatever else I’m forgetting. So in total we are looking at 152 pages instead of 136. This will make the printing cost a bit higher so we probably wont be able to print much more than 2000 copies now.

I am still planning on giving all the finished files to my printer at the end of February. It’s getting crazy being this close to printing. I’m getting nervous. Haha!

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement! This book is turning out to be one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done because of all the love you guys have given it. High fives all around!

Since I was negative about Comic Sans in my article 7 Reasons to NOT use Comic Sans in Your Comic, I figured I should at least point out all the great ways you could actually use it. So, I consulted my forum to see if we could put our heads together and make a list of uses for Comic Sans MS. Here are the top 30.

When to use Comic Sans MS:

1. When accompanied by braille.
2. In an email, when you need to break up with your designer girlfriend or boyfriend, but don’t have the guts to just do it.
3. For font sizes 3pts. or smaller.
4. Whenever writing profanity to maximize offensiveness.
5. Your name is Vincent Connare. You made this, so might as well use it proudly.
6. It’s a life and death situation!!! For some reason.
7. You mistook it for “Cosmic Sense”.
8. You’re drunk and it makes it look like the “best font ever”.
9. If it was an accident.
10. To emphasize how smart your dumbest character is getting.
11. If your comic is wordless.
12. If you’re a Fortune 500 company?
13. If you write Dave Gibbons asking for his permission to use it since it was supposedly based on his lettering. Good luck.
14. If on your death bed, you can’t talk and the only way you can communicate is by texting your family with your final words but all your other fonts have somehow vanished.
15. If your natural handwriting looks exactly like it.
16. If you’re playing the ‘guess-what-letter-I’m-drawing-on-your-back-with-my-finger’ game with a comatose pal.
17. You’re applying for a letterer job. The thing is… you actually want to be rejected, it’s too much pressure!
18. You’re writing a ransom note. You want to mess with these people as much as possible.
19. You’re testing how typography affects the human psyche. This is a good place to start.
20. You’re writing a letter to your clown friend.
21. You’re using invisible ink. No, the real stuff that can’t be made visible. Ever.
22. If you are printing it on a dot matrix printer. From the 80′s.
23. Comic Sans can be used on anything that explodes.
24. If you are over 90 years old. I mean, come on, you earn the right to do whatever you want at that age.
25. If you want to republish your comic again in a few years with revised lettering.
26. If you are making a list of all the fonts ever made.
27. When you want to stick it to a really crappy client that is a major pain (Papyrus may also be used)
28. You’re writing notes to yourself.
29. If you’re a homicide detective investigating a murder that took place at a party with 100 people and you know that a graphic designer has committed the murder but you don’t know which attendee is a graphic designer, make a sign using Comic Sans and ask everyone what they think of it. The graphic designer will be the only person who has a problem with it.
30. If you are making a list called “When to use Comic-Sans”

Well, there you have it. Hopefully this will cool down all the hatred from my last article against the font. Feel free to leave additional suggestions for the font in the comments below. I’d like to thank a few friends for contributing to this list too. Check out their webcomics below:

Aviv Itzcovitz, new Thrall, Emily Lorange, Christopher Kosek, Christopher Wrann, and Mr. Average.

Simple FaceBook and Twitter buttons

One of the unspoken rules of building a fan base for a blog, book or webcomic is making your content easy to share. At least that’s what I’ve heard from most of the sources I read. But convincing someone to take action and share your site with others is a hard thing to do. I hear that the more clicks and steps someone has to take to share something only limits the amount of people who will actually share it.

So for me I just needed to find the quickest way for people to share my content on the two most popular sites I know. Facebook and Twitter. I’ve seen some of my favorite blogs with simple buttons at the end of their posts but I couldn’t figure out how to do it so simply. (Check out the bottom of this post to see the buttons I’m talking about)

Not to long ago I read a blog post on Tim Ferris’ blog and it gave me part of the answers. Here are two of the links it suggested.

Facebook plugins
Twitter buttons

Now the problem with these links is implementing it into my blog posts. I tried copying the code from the sites but it also messed something else up on my blog and never appeared in the exact location I wanted it to appear. Plus, I didn’t like the idea of copying the code into each post adding to my list of hassles I’d prefer avoiding.

Facebook Like Button

After a few nights of frustration I realized I should just search for the plugins within WordPress. I went to the dashboard of my WordPress site and did a search for “facebook like” and found a giant list of plugins from all kinds of random people. I didn’t just want A plugin, I wanted THE plugin. I tested too many of them and finally found the right one that my favorite bloggers use. This is what it’s called:

FBLikeButton

Unfortunately this link only goes to the developer’s site. To install the WordPress plugin you’ll need to login to your WordPress site, select plugins and do a search for “FBLikeButton”. Once installed, you can select where you want the button to appear in your posts and you are ready to roll.

Travis from The Bean uses a plugin called “Simple Facebook Like Widget” and it allows you to leave a comment on Facebook really easily. I love this feature and I might just have to switch over and test it out sometime soon. Thanks for the info Trav!

Twitter or Retweet Button

Next I searched for THE Twitter Tweet plugin and to my dismay, found so many plugins that it was a nightmare to sort through. Eventually I found a plugin that had the most downloads and installed it and sure enough, it was the exact same tweet plugin that I was looking for all this time. Here is a link to the developer site.

TweetMeme

To install this one you will need to do the same thing as with the Facebook button. Search your WordPress plugins for “TweetMeme”.  This will narrow it down better than searching for “Tweet Button” or “Twitter”. This plugin has 2 versions, an actual Twitter version and a TweetMeme version. I prefer the TweetMeme version because of how it looks and I’ve noticed my favorite bloggers use it too. Once installed, you can configure it to go before or after your post.

Now with one click, someone can read my post and shoot a link off to their friends on Facebook or Twitter. Since I’ve implemented this, my retweets have skyrocketed… well except for this article. Come one guys, don’t make me look like a fool here.

Todays plug is for Twilight Monk, a new webcomic by Trent Kaniuga.  I meet Trent a long time ago when he was working on Creed in the 90′s. You can read an interview about it here:  Trent Kaniuga Interview

Recently Trent has begun working on a new series and it’s off to a great start. There are only 15 pages online so far but it’s already starting to get good. As many of you know from Creed, Trent’s older work, he has a very professional and appealing style and it looks like he’s bringing it all to the plate with this new ongoing series for free online.  Jump on over to his site and check it out. I don’t think you will be let down. Having Trent jump into webcomics is a great thing so show him some love and support. The more high quality stuff out there the better for everyone!

On top of having a cool new comic, Trent’s thoughts on the subject of comics are really interesting. Here is an article he wrote called, “Why I have failed at comics for 8 years.” It’s an interesting read because Trent has been around for a while and he’s had some great success with his work. To hear his struggles and revelations are really inspiring to me. Anyway, I think Twilight Monk is going to be around for a long time and I wouldn’t be surprised if it blows up in ways that any webcomic creator could only dream of.

So jump on board before it gets big. You can tell everyone you were a fan from the beginning. I know I am!

I don’t remember if I said I would update today or not because of the holidays. I could check to see what I said a few weeks back but instead… I’ll just post some new pages. Next week will be a break from the story for some Holiday art. Plus I’m planning on making a treasure hunt, so to speak, for the month of January so make sure you come back on New Years day so you don’t miss your chance to…

Win Original Art from reMIND!

So, here’s the deal. For the whole month of January I’m going to have a new voting incentive EVERYDAY when you vote for reMIND over at TopWebComics.com. If you vote everyday you will get a chance to win original art from reMIND. Some of the incentives will include panels from the 4 extra pages that will be published in the book. In addition to seeing extra reMIND content I will have a secret code word at the bottom of some of the images which will form a sentence when you put it all together in the right order. If you collect all the words to make the full secret sentence then you will be able to win an original piece of art from reMIND. I’ll cover the shipping too. Even international shipping.

I’m preparing all the incentives now so I can just sit back and let it run its course automagically. So make sure to vote everyday in January!

Why am I doing this, you ask? I want to see if I can get into the top 10 on TopWebComics even if it’s just for a few days. Why do I want to get into the top 10, you ask? Because I have a theory.

Jason’s theory:

Making vote incentives has always been annoying to me. In turn I usually forget to update them. I figured it’s too time consuming to do regularly when it doesn’t really get me many new visitors.  Now, when I buy advertising on TopWebComics it really works nicely to bring in new traffic. About 80 new visitors a day from advertising there. BUT, if I were to get into the top 10 from voting and get my banner shown on the front page of TWC then I’m assuming it would generate more new visitors a day than paying for advertising by a long shot. So, I wanna get into the top ten so I can see what kind of traffic it actually generates in comparison to just buying ad space.

This is no guarantee I’ll even make the top Ten because it’s really stiff competition above 50. The highest I’ve ever been ranked is #14 for about 2 hours. The only way I can make it is if I have hundreds of dedicated fans voting for reMIND every 24 hours. With your help, we might be able to make this experiment worth it and there’s nothing like a prize to motivate. Of course I’ll compile the results and write an article about my findings if it all works. If it works really well then I might do it next month too with another piece of original art. We will just have to see what happens.

So, here is the original art some dedicated fan will win. All you gotta do is vote every day in January and be quick on your toes at the end. I might even post 3 or 4 originals that the winner can choose from.

Like I said, make sure you come back during your holiday break, I’ll start the incentives on January 1st!

reMIND will continue page updates on January 3rd. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Years! Thanks for making 2010 such a great year for reMIND! Much love.

- Jason